Saturday, 11 August 2012

Fo ages .. years even .. I think - I have being hoarding this Anna Maria Horner fabric, I love her prints and for some reason this was not popular in the shop, so I squirrelled it away for myself, I don't often do this but I had something in mind for it - deep .. deep .. deep - something that I really wanted to do, but wasn't really sure how to. After reading this great tutorial from Michael Miller here about starching walls.. I thought heck - if it goes wrong - I can just pull it down.
My walls were wall papered with the most horrendous paper, that was there from the previous owner ..I had attempted to take it down as we had done with the other walls - but it just seemed to be welded on .. and I had given up - I know shame on me - but everything else in the house is nearly done and this was the last thing to be completed - so hey I started.
I had read a couple of other snip- its from blogs .. saying .. 'really difficult'.. 'needs two people to do'..stains the walls'.. etc ... but I thought that I would crack on anyway.

I cut the length of the piece of fabric that I am after, I measure the height of the wall - adding a couple of inches extra for the top and the bottom for the fabric shrinkage.

-I then cover a section of my wall with starch .. it is recommended that you use the flo starch - but to be honest I have never seen it here and the only liquid starch that I could find was this at the chemical hut here

- I then discovered that you should really have your fabric slightly damp to aid with sticking. so I did that next - just slightly damped under the tap.

- while the fabric is damp - I trimmed off the selvedge edge - I wasn't sure whether to do it or not - but figured it would look a lot nicer and it being damp - stopped the edges fraying.

- I had a hammer and a few tacks handy to help me put it up .

- I tacked up the centre of the first piece - leaving an overlap at the top for shrinkage. I started on the left hand side lining it up, the fabric edge with the wall.
I tacked again on the side to keep in place.

- I took a sponge dipped in the starch and applied to the fabric as I would while wallpapering I smoothed it along the fabric to get the bubbles and the crinkles out.

-The fabric adheres quite quickly to the wall with the starch and it very easy to smooth out.
-At the stage I have just quickly tacked along the side and along the top - just to keep the fabric in place while the starch is setting.

-I decide to leave that to semi dry - before I start with the next piece/ length. I work out my repeat pattern and how much the fabric will overlap in order to make the patten work.

-I cut to the right length as before.

-I starch my wall as previous putting extra starch over the fabric that was there in order to help it line up and stick.

I continue these steps until I get to the end of the wall.. letting the previous section dry a little before putting the new pice of fabric on .. and always tacking along the top and the side.

I have to say - I did enjoy this project as it was an instant transformation of the room .. and I could do it myself - I was never much good at wallpapering . I found that the starch was easy to clean up as well after .. as it does get a little messy .. overall I nice diy job that could be adapted to lots of coverings .. doors etc.. would I do it again ... YES

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About Me

Hello there, my name is Gwen and I just love fabric, textiles - patterns - shapes and textures. I have an online fabric website which even if i do say is a hidden fabric treasure - fun - exciting and a little quirky check us out if you get a chance at www.celticfusionfabrics.com - happy crafting - Gwen